Report: Andy Palmer tells Autocar the ban will kill jobs and force reliance on other countries

July 27, 2017

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The U.K. government's announcement of plans to ban gasoline and diesel-engined cars by 2040 has drawn no shortage of reactions -- even some environmental activists are fretting about the extra power plants and wind farms that will have to be built to support all-electric and hybrid vehicles. Meanwhile, proponents of the plan point out that 2040 is still far in the future and the U.K. will achieve these goals in incremental steps, citing years of congestion charging in the center of London as a successful first step to limiting the use of cars in areas of air pollution.

“It’s not thinking about the consequential effects to the 800,000 people in our industry," Palmer told Autocar. "It’s not taking into account the impact to things like petrol station garages and the (Ford employees) who have been making engines in Bridgend."

But Palmer also focused on the fact that hybrids will still be permitted after 2040 and said that hybrid cars are expected to achieve a very high market share long before 2040 even without the government mandate.

The U.K. plans to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2040, environment minister Michael Gove announced this week according to The Guardian, aligning the country with France's earlier ...

"In 2040, there won’t be a pure combustion car because hybridization and plug-in hybridization will be there with room to spare," Palmer said. "I genuinely believe plug-in hybrids will represent 40 percent of the mix even by 2030, so this 2040 ban would be late."

Palmer also voiced caution about how such a ban could give the U.K. a competitive disadvantage, discarding clean combustion engine technology know-how and forcing British automakers to purchase low-cost batteries overseas, batteries that have been developed with government help.

“We’re all in this, so if the government want us to throw away our engines, then it has to work with us -- or it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back," Palmer said. "We (Aston Martin) don’t have the might of Volkswagen or BMW behind us for budget."

Palmer's comments to Autocar mirror those of skeptics of France's similar 2040 ban, announced earlier this month. The regional-pocket nature of the ban has invited criticisms that it will disadvantage countries that adopt it unless all countries in a particular region do the same.

Following France’s announcement a few weeks ago that it was banning the sale of new gas- and diesel-powered cars starting in 2040, the internal-combustion engine took another smack today when ...

Critics of the ban also fear that countries that produce the cheapest EV batteries -- likely to be outside Europe -- will hold sway over the car companies of Europe, while being free to adopt their own environmental standards that aren't likely to be the most stringent. This is basically an argument that, by 2040, China will be one of the leading producers of EV batteries given its industrial might, low labor costs and worldwide mining operations. This line of reasoning makes it imperative that EU countries not just build EVs, but build their own battery plants and attempt to achieve comparable production costs, likely through automation. That's a tall order, one that is likely to force automakers and suppliers to compete with countries with vastly lower labor costs while forcing them to buy or mine greater amounts of raw materials.

Skeptics of the ban argue those countries with the lowest battery production costs and the least environmental and labor constraints will have a distinct advantage in such a situation, and that attempts to achieve cleaner air in Europe will simply shift pollution elsewhere in the world in addition to requiring far more electrical energy than is being produced now. The element of increased energy production for the U.K. and other countries that adopt the ban will also make it attractive for these countries to buy electrical power abroad rather than build more nuclear plants at home, likely in Russia, which will be in a position to become even more of an energy producer than it already is by catering to EU energy needs.